Profile: Monica Crowley

Monica Crowley was a participant or observer in the following events:

Former White House counsel John Dean reaches a successful settlement over his libel suit against St. Martin’s Press, the publisher of the 1991 book Silent Coup (see May 6, 1991). Dean has alleged that the book, which accused him of masterminding the Watergate conspiracy and his wife Maureen of being involved with a prostitution ring, is defamatory. Dean’s suit was for $150 million in damages; he is not at liberty to divulge the terms of the settlement, but says, “All I can say is that we’re satisfied.” Dean is still suing authors Leonard Colodny and Robert Gettlin, and convicted Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, who not only helped write the book, but has recently called Maureen Dean a prostitute. St. Martin’s Press issued a revision of Silent Coup which removed defamatory material about Mrs. Dean. [Washington Post, 7/23/1997] In 2006, Dean will write that the lawsuit took years to settle, largely because “St. Martin’s tried every possible ploy to prevent its going to trial.” One of the key witnesses would have been lawyer Philip Macklin Bailey, who was allegedly involved in the purported prostitution ring, and had a notebook supposedly containing Maureen Dean’s name (under her maiden name, “Mo” Biner). Dean will call Bailey “the worst possible source of information in the annals of defamation law.” Bailey has shuttled in and out of mental institutions for decades, and if Bailey had testified, his lawyer would have presented medical evidence that Bailey was unable to distinguish fact from fiction. Dean will write that by the time the other lawsuits would have gone to trial, he was prepared to present evidence that the central thesis of the book was entirely fabricated. Colodny will eventually settle with Dean; a judge will then terminate the litigation, essentially letting Liddy and Gettlin off the hook. (Dean will note that it was pointless from a financial viewpoint to sue Liddy, since Liddy had long since transferred all of his assets to his wife’s name, and St. Martin’s Press is paying all of his legal expenses.) [Dean, 2006, pp. xxv-xxvi] Colodny will continue to maintain a Web site, the “Nixon Era Times,” that features material from Silent Coup and adds further, equally questionable, allegations to the book’s main contentions. [Leonard Colodny, 2008] Dean will note that the book has continued to gain followers, largely among right-wing media personages such as MSNBC’s Monica Crowley and Fox News anchor Brit Hume. The book also played a large role in gaining Liddy a position as a radio talk show host. [Dean, 2006, pp. xxvi-xxvii]

John Ehrlichman. [Source: PBS]After years of protracted legal wrangling, selected portions of former President Richard Nixon’s secret White House recordings (see July 13-16, 1973) are made public. In a January 2, 1997 panel discussion on PBS, two former Nixon aides, John Ehrlichman and Monica Crowley, and former New York Times reporter Tom Wicker, discuss the content and dissemination of the tapes. All three have listened to the released portions of the tapes, currently housed at the National Archives. Context - Ehrlichman complains that the selections lack context: “The archivist has snipped little tiny segments, in some cases six or eight seconds, and you don’t know what was said before or after. And it’s tough on a listener.… I think there could be a lot more context given. What they’ve done is try and select out the things that embodied abuses of government power under their regulations, and that’s what they’re giving you.” Wicker says it is hard to know when Nixon’s “popping off” about this or that supposed enemy was ever acted upon and when his instructions to “get” a particular person were ignored. Crowley says: “I think all presidents say things in the heat of disappointment, frustration, anger, even fatigue, that they never intend to have acted upon. And Nixon’s rantings have become a lightning rod for criticism because we can hear his but we can’t hear those of other presidents.” Brookings Institution Burglary Halted - Ehrlichman explains why Nixon’s 1972 order to burglarize the Brookings Institution (see June 30-July 1, 1971) was never carried out: “because I shot it down.… I tracked down who had followed up—who was proposing to do this thing and I told ‘em to stop. It sounded ridiculous to me. So that was the end of it.” Comparison of Ellsberg and Hiss - Ehrlichman says that, listening to the tapes, it seems as if Nixon was comparing Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the notorious “Pentagon Papers” (see June 13, 1971), to his “Communist” nemesis of the 1950s, Alger Hiss. Hiss, prosecuted by Nixon for allegedly selling US intelligence to the Soviet Union, helped Nixon vault to national prominence. Ehrlichman now says Nixon seemed to hope that Ellsberg could provide him with another, similar boost to his political stature before the 1972 presidential elections. In general, Ehrlichman says, Nixon was “very sensitive” to press leaks, especially those that he considered a threat to national security, and “his reaction in some cases was pretty extreme.” Mentions of Jews - Ehrlichman goes on to address Nixon’s well-documented diatribes against Jews (see September 1971), and says that such outbursts were not confined to Jews: another day “it was major Italian donors to the Democrats, and [the next] it would be black contributors.… He broke it down along ethnic lines. He broke it down along socioeconomic lines. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the fact that he was talking about Jewish people in this particular segment.” Wicker says the tapes largely confirm the public impression of Nixon as a “dark… evil man” because of his blatant orders of criminal behavior and his rampant ethnic slurs. [PBS, 1/2/1997]

Stephen Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at a Cupertino, California public school, is prevented by school administrators from selecting passages from historical documents for his students that reinforce his belief that the US is a strictly Christian nation; in return, many media representatives accuse his school district of “banning the Declaration of Independence” from being taught. Williams describes himself as an “orthodox Christian.” He wants his students to learn that America’s “Founding Fathers” were staunch Christians who intended to create a nation based on Biblical tenets, a position not supported by the historical record. After finding few citations in school textbooks to support his beliefs, Williams began giving his students selected passages from a number of historical documents, including William Penn’s “Frame of Government in Pennsylvania,” the Delaware State Constitution, George Washington’s prayer journal, and President Bush’s statement on the recent National Prayer Day, where he told the nation, “Prayer is an opportunity to praise God for His mighty works.” Some of the parents of Williams’s students believed he was attempting to evangelize their children; one parent said, “My daughter came home one day and said, ‘Mr. Williams talks about Jesus 100 times a day.’” Williams’s principal, Patricia Vidmar, began reviewing his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to ensure that he does not proselytize religion to his students. Williams responded with a lawsuit complaining that his free speech and academic freedom had been unduly constrained. (Williams is being represented in court by the Alliance Defense Fund, which has filed several lawsuits challenging the legality of same-sex marriage.) When the national press reports Williams’s situation, conservative pundits and radio hosts begin informing, and misinforming, their listeners and readers about Williams and his teaching; many tell their audiences that the Cupertino school district is “banning the Declaration of Independence.” Fox News talk show hosts Sean Hannity and John Gibson, along with Fox News anchor Brit Hume, Fox News analyst Newt Gingrich, and MSNBC commentator Monica Crowley, all tell their audiences that the school does not allow the Declaration of Independence to be referenced in its classes. The conservative National Lawyers Association accuses Vidmar, whom it terms a “rogue school principal,” of working towards “rul[ing] that the Constitution is unconstitutional.” Some parents, district supporters, and civil liberties advocates say Williams has become a rallying point for conservative Christians eager to, in their words, rewrite American history. Ivory Madison, a legal analyst for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says: “This is the same thing that people have been trying to do for 200 years. The only difference now is that they’re well funded, media savvy, and litigious. It’s a shame that our tax dollars have to be used for a school district to defend the Constitution.” One parent at the Cupertino school says of Williams’s teaching: “This is not about teaching history, this is about indoctrination.… [W]hat would happen if someone whose religion is not a majority religion would be doing this? It isn’t OK [for a teacher] to make a kid feel like he isn’t like you.” Another parent asked the school not to place her child in Williams’s class this year, and says, “[W]hat he’s doing isn’t teaching history. If you were teaching at a church school, that would be great. But he isn’t.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 12/8/2004; Media Matters, 12/10/2004]

A 2003 publicity photo of Monica Crowley. [Source: 96.9 FM WTKK]Fox News commentator Monica Crowley, guest-hosting conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show, tells her audience that Democratic candidate Barack Obama is not African-American, but “Arab African.” Crowley admits that she has done no research to verify her claim, but is quoting conservative blogger Kenneth Lamb, who himself provided no verification to his February 2008 claim. Crowley says: “[A]ccording to this genealogy—and again, because I haven’t done the research, I can’t verify this—but according to this guy Kenneth Lamb, Barack Obama is not black African, he is Arab African.… And yet, this guy is campaigning as black and painting anybody who dares to criticize him as a racist. I mean, that is—it is the biggest con I think I’ve ever seen.” (Lamb has consistently refused to provide the research to back his claim, but has instead challenged critics to do the research themselves—including surreptitiously obtaining samples of Obama’s DNA for testing—and accused the administration of Harvard University of complicity in perpetuating the “sleight of hand.”) [Media Matters, 6/26/2008] In September 2008, radio host Rush Limbaugh will repeat the falsehood (see September 22, 2008).

Conservative pundits on Fox News and other media outlets falsely claim that President Obama ceded the government’s authority over its economy to an international consortium during the G-20 summit, which concluded on April 2, 2009 in London. On April 3, pundit Dick Morris appears on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom to claim that Obama “effectively ceded massive areas of American sovereignty to Europe and to the global economic mavens.… [T]his literally is a massive surrender of sovereignty to an essentially European body.” On April 3, US Representative Don Manzullo (R-IL) tells CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim that Treasury Secretary Timothy “Geithner’s proposing, with the help of the administration, a worldwide international control over all financial interests—in fact, over any corporation, to the extent of even controlling the compensation of the employees. That’s not only radical, Kitty, that’s frightening.” Pilgrim responds, “Yeah, it certainly is.” On April 5, Fox News host Monica Crowley, appearing on the syndicated McLaughlin Group, says the G-20 agreement is “the first step to abrogating American sovereignty here, because… it is going to allow European bureaucrats to step in, not just on the hedge fund regulation and the other explicit things that they agreed to, but buried deep down in this communiqué was the ability for European bureaucrats sitting in Brussels to decide what kind of executive compensation American executives should—” Financial Times US managing editor Chrystia Freeland interjects, “No, there was no authority like that there, Monica.” Crowley responds, “I read it in the communique this morning.” [Media Matters, 4/7/2009] In an April 6 column titled “The Declaration of Independence Has Been Repealed,” Morris writes: “On April 2, 2009, the work of July 4, 1776 was nullified at the meeting of the G-20 in London. The joint communique essentially announces a global economic union with uniform regulations and bylaws for all nations, including the United States. Henceforth, our SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], Commodities Trading Commission, Federal Reserve Board, and other regulators will have to march to the beat of drums pounded by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), a body of central bankers from each of the G-20 states and the European Union.… Obama, perhaps feeling guilty for the US role in triggering the international [economic] crisis, has, indeed, given away the store. Now we may no longer look to presidential appointees, confirmed by the Senate, to make policy for our economy. These decisions will be made internationally.” Noting that the FSB is numerically dominated by European members, Morris writes: “The Europeans have been trying to get their hands on our financial system for decades. It is essential to them that they rein in American free enterprise so that their socialist heaven will not be polluted by vices such as the profit motive. Now, with President Obama’s approval, they have done it.” [Dick Morris, 4/6/2009] On the evening of April 6, Morris makes the same claims on Fox News’s Hannity, telling viewers: “Basically, from an economic standpoint, [Obama’s] repealed [the Declaration of Independence]. We no longer have economic sovereignty.” [New York Times, 4/3/2009] None of these claims are true, as Freeland tried to assert. The FSB has no cross-border authority and therefore no authority over American economic decisions. On April 3, the New York Times reports, “While the [G-20] leaders agreed to create a new Financial Stability Board to monitor the financial system for signs of risks, they stopped well short of giving regulators cross-border authority, something France has long advocated.” [New York Times, 4/3/2009; Media Matters, 4/7/2009]

Fox News anchor Monica Crowley, a guest on Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor, explains why so many people give credence to the “birther” theory that President Obama is not an American citizen, saying: “Listen, if the president is sitting in the White House wondering why the birth certificate issue still has traction, why some of these other issues about his origins and his background have traction, it’s not about those issues per se, though. It’s about the fact that he continues to do things… that are not ‘anti-American,’ they’re ‘un-American.’ His policies—” O’Reilly interjects, “I wouldn’t go that far.” Guest Alan Colmes calls her characterization “really disgusting. It’s really reprehensible that you would go there.… It’s really reprehensible that you would say ‘un-American,’ really reprehensible.” Crowley insists that “her distinction” between “anti-American” and “un-American” has meaning. Obama’s policies on what she calls “wealth redistribution,” on “Obamacare,” and on “expanding the welfare state” are what she says “all feeds into this idea that somehow, fair or not, Obama is not one of us.” O’Reilly concludes the segment by accusing Obama of exhibiting “poor judgment.” Colmes invites Republicans to keep pushing the idea that Obama is “not one of us,” saying that to do so will have them “lose every election.” [Media Matters, 4/26/2011]

Conservative blogger Pamela Geller, who for years has stirred the “birther” controversy surrounding President Obama’s birth certificate (see July 20, 2008, October 24, 2008, and August 4, 2009), appears on Fox Business Channel to discuss the release of President Obama’s “long form” certificate (see April 27, 2011). Using a poster-size reproduction of the certificate as a prop, Geller says the certificate is “actually not a birth certificate,” calling it a “certificate of live birth.” Host Eric Bolling insists that the certificate has been “Photoshopped” (i.e. altered using the graphics program Photoshop) because of a “green border” surrounding the certificate. Geller agrees that the border is “suspect.” Bolling says the certificate “opens up the can of worms that there are at least questions for it.” Both Bolling and Geller appear to be basing their “analysis” on the quickly-debunked claim that the “layering” of the PDF image of the certificate “proves” it is a fake (see April 27, 2011). Fox contributor Monica Crowley says billionaire real estage mogul and television host Donald Trump “forced the president’s hand to the point where he actually produced this document that we’re talking about.” She says Obama took a “direct slam at Donald Trump” by calling those who continue to question the legitimacy of his birth “sideshows and carnival barkers.” However, Crowley says, “we’ve got this document produced today, which means President Obama zero, carnival barker one.” Guest Keith Ablow agrees with Crowley that Trump deserves the credit for “forcing” Obama to release the certificate. Bolling says that Obama’s timing in releasing the certificate—on the same day that Trump appears in New Hampshire as part of what some consider to be his preparations to enter the 2012 presidential campaign—is obviously an attempt to upstage Trump. Ablow says there is some as-yet unknown reason why Obama has not released this “long form” certificate until now (Ablow does not inform viewers that Hawaiian state law prohibits the “long form” certificate from being given to anyone, and that Obama needed to get a special dispensation from the Hawaiian State Department to be given a copy—see July 1, 2009). Crowley cites the theory of author and conspiracist Jerome Corsi (see August 1, 2008 and After, August 15, 2008, October 8, 2008, October 9, 2008, July 21, 2009, September 21, 2010, January 18, 2011, and March 27-28, 2011), who is about to release a book that will purport to prove Obama is not a citizen; “I think what Obama was trying to do today,” she says, “is preempt that, try to steal the thunder away from this book that’s coming out, so that nobody will pay attention to the Corsi book.” Bolling informs viewers that the wife and son of the doctor who signed the birth certificate in 1961, who has since passed away, “had no idea” that he signed the certificate. “If you gave birth to the president of the United States,” Bolling says, “don’t you think your family would know about it?” Geller concludes the segment by citing an array of Obama’s “life documents” that she says have been kept out of the public eye (see September 11, 2008, Around June 28, 2010, and April 26, 2011), and accuses the media of “protecting this man” from scrutiny. [Media Matters, 4/27/2011; Media Matters, 4/27/2011] A day later, the progressive media watchdog Web site Media Matters notes that the doctor that signed the birth certificate died in 2003. Reporter Ben Dimiero will write: “Let that sink in for a second. At the time, Barack Obama was a little-known state senator in Illinois. If the doctor had told his family before he died that he delivered the future president, that would have spawned a much more interesting conspiracy theory (he’s a wizard!). Apparently Eric Bolling thinks obstetricians give their families a list of the most interesting people they delivered—with a special section for ‘potential future presidents’—before they die.” [Media Matters, 4/28/2011] Two days later, Geller will label Obama “a b_stard, literally and figuratively” (see April 29, 2011).

Sandra Fluke. [Source: Alex Wong / Getty Images / New York Times]Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh insults Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who testified in favor of federal law mandating that health care providers pay for contraception (see March 1, 2012), as a “slut” and a “prostitute” who wants the government to pay her for having sex. On his radio show, Limbaugh, who wrongly identifies her as “Susan” Fluke, says: “What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps. The johns, that’s right. We would be the johns—no! We’re not the johns. Well—yeah, that’s right. Pimp’s not the right word. Okay, so, she’s not a slut. She’s round-heeled. I take it back.” Think Progress reporter Alex Seitz-Wald comments on Limbaugh’s characterization, “While it’s probably not even worth engaging with Limbaugh on the facts, Fluke’s testimony was about a friend who is a lesbian and needed birth control for non-sexual medical reasons, so he’s only wrong about three times over, and offensive many more times over than that.” Seitz-Wald notes that Fluke never discussed her own use, or non-use, of contraception, nor did she allude to her sexual activities at all. [Media Matters, 2/29/2012; Think Progress, 2/29/2012; Think Progress, 3/1/2012]Misrepresentation - Seitz-Wald will note that Limbaugh is deliberately misrepresenting Fluke’s position and the position of Congressional Democrats. “Fluke’s testimony, and the entire contraception debate, is about insurance companies paying for contraception as part of their health coverage, the… way they pay for any other medication, such as Viagra. Morevoer, Fluke’s testimony was not about herself, but about a friend who need contraception to fight cancer and other fellow law students. This conservative narrative, which is pure fantasy, seems to be based on a single bogus article from Cybercast News Service (CNS), which Limbaugh repeatedly cites, with the ludicrous headline, ‘Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate.’” [CNS News, 2/29/2012; Think Progress, 3/2/2012]Other News Outlets Join Limbaugh - Other conservative news outlets join Limbaugh in attacking Fluke and other women who use contraception. In the article cited by Limbaugh, CNS’s Craig Bannister says that “sex-crazed co-eds” like Fluke should cut back on the amount of sex they’re having to pay for other needs such as books and food. Fox News’s Trace Gallagher mocks Fluke, saying: “And see, I was gonna go to law school, but I thought all you did was study in law school, right? So, I guess I was wrong on that.” Fox News correspondent Monica Crowley says the government should not pay Fluke and others to have “recreational sex.” CNN commentator Dana Loesch calls Fluke and other women “nymphos” for wanting access to contraceptives, and says Fluke and feminists “support… female genocide.” [Media Matters, 2/29/2012; CNS News, 2/29/2012]Fox Business Commentator: Fluke's Testimony Part of a Pro-Abortion Scheme by House Minority Leader - On Fox Business Channel’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, regular guest Bill Donohue calls Fluke a “little brat.” Dobbs asks Donohue to comment on what he calls Fluke’s demand that she be given free contraception, a mischaracterization of Fluke’s testimony (and one contradicted by the clip of her testimony Dobbs plays before Donohue’s comments). Donohue begins by lambasting Georgetown for having a group called “Hoyas for Choice,” which he calls “Hoyas for Abortion,” but not groups like “Hoyas for Racism” or “Hoyas for Anti-Semitism.” Donohue suggests that the university and Hoyas for Choice raise “the nine dollars a month” Fluke needs for her personal contraception needs, and Dobbs notes that Georgetown is “one of the most expensive universities in the country.” Donohue attacks Fluke for “obviously dressing well” but then asking taxpayers to pay for her contraception and, without basis in fact, for her university education to boot. Why aren’t taxpayers funding his anti-gout medication? he asks. “This is what we’ve come down to in this country,” he concludes. “You have these little brats who come on TV and they testify and they say, ‘I want, I want, I want,’ and somehow I have a moral responsibility? They have a lien on me to pay this? It’s all about getting the Catholic Church, obviously, to pay for their abortion-inducing drugs, which is why we’re having this debate.” Donohue says that Fluke’s testimony is part of a scheme by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), “who actually brought her on there to speak,” to force the Catholic Church to amend its position on abortion. [Media Matters, 2/29/2012]'Shockingly Ugly Hatred' - Conservative blogger Charles Johnson, who in recent years has become highly critical of the race- and gender-based rhetoric from the right, writes that the right’s reaction to Fluke constitutes “shockingly ugly hatred,” and says Limbaugh’s attack is “another step into the gutter.” [Charles Johnson, 2/29/2012] Atlantic columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates agrees with Johnson, noting that Limbaugh is not just an “entertainer,” but a powerful opinion leader of the Republican Party, and says that Limbaugh’s comments are part of what Coates calls “the normalization of cruelty” and “evidence of the lowest aspects of humanity.” [Atlantic, 3/1/2012] Eric Boehlert, a senior writer at the liberal media watchdog Web site Media Matters, calls Limbaugh’s “radio outburst” an example of his “rancid misogyny,” and writes: “[I]t was perhaps the talk show host’s incessant need to bully powerless people from the safety of his studio that was so striking. That, and the glee Limbaugh seemed to take in not only maligning the young woman, but her parents as well. It’s jaw-dropping.” Boehlert goes on to remind readers that Limbaugh is not just a voice on the radio or an entertainer, but “the voice of America’s conservative movement, as well as the Republican Party.” [Media Matters, 3/1/2012]House Democrats Call for Condemnation - House Democrats, including Pelosi, call for Republican Congressional leaders to condemn Limbaugh’s remarks (see February 29, 2012). Statement from Law Student - Fluke will issue a statement repudiating Limbaugh’s rhetoric (see March 1, 2012). Continued Attacks - Limbaugh will continue his attacks on Fluke the next day (see March 1, 2012).

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